Alistair
Alistair was a Black Legion Chaos Space Marine of some notoriety, active from the days of the Great Crusade, right up until recent times. Alistair was not the Chaos Lord's original name, but one he chose in exile. After the defeat of Horus and the Traitor Legions, Alistair shed his name, the last vestige of his heroic past in the Crusade, and it is said that even Alistair himself has forgotten what his true name was. A Chosen of the Despoiler, Alistair was among the most influential advisors to the Warmaster during the 13th Black Crusade. He is believed to be ranked below the likes of Devram Korda, Zariphaston and Ygethmor the Deciever in the Despoiler's favour, but is nonetheless a powerful and influential Chaos Lord, and is in command of the Black Legion 9th Grand Company, a post he has retained since the Great Crusade. Alistair has since participated in every Black Crusade, and several other important actions by the Traitor Legions besides (including the murders of at least two Imperial Saints), his name synonymous with relentless slaughter and destruction. Biography Early History and the Great Crusade Alistair, though known by a different name in those times, was a miner on Terra who joined the Emperor's legions not long after they began expanding into the Galaxy not long after the Warp Storms isolating Terra abated. He was an early success of the Gene Seed Surgery using Horus' template. Thus, he is amongst the oldest Black Legionnaires in the galaxy. He was appointed to the 9th Grand Company of the Luna Wolves, as they were known then. In the early battles of the Crusade, he rapidly proved himself a skilled soldier and more importantly, a talented leader and skilled tactician. After his squad's Brother-Sergeant was killed by enemy artillery fire, Alistair took up the Sergeant's Chainsword and Plasma Pistol and led his squad through the teeth of the enemy guns, finally silencing them and allowing reinforcements to pass on and achieve victory. After this battle, Alistair was marked out as something special, a breed apart and above his brother Space Marines. Again and again, Alistair proved himself in close action, and his acts were often used as shows of force by Horus to force a defiant foe to surrender to the Emperor's glory. Eventually, as Company Champion, Alistair was among the first into action, and the last to leave. He fought at his commander's side in many battles, but never achieved the recognition he had so joyously taken in as a Neophyte and Sergeant. He began to resent his commander for the glory laid upon his brow, which Alistair saw as earned on the blood of hard-working soldiers. When his commander lay greiviously wounded, but not fatally so, in a breach on the world of Skalfar III, Alistair took his chance. In the swirling melee of the breach, he struck the Commander's head from his shoulders as he lay stricken and seized command of the company, leading them to victory. Horus and the Company's soldiers, having not seen the manner of the commander's passing, happily approved of Alistair as their new commander. Alistair rampaged across Segmentum Ultima at the head of the Ninth Grand Company, serving as Horus' loyal hounds. Given the high concentration of Librarians in their ranks, the 9th were more capable than other companies of navigating the treacherous currents of the Warp. This allowed them to move much more freely, able to take paths through the Warp few others knew of, and even fewer dared to take. During the Ullanor Crusade, the 9th were always at the forefront of the fighting, alongside the 1st Company. Alistair rejoiced when the Emperor renamed the Legion as the Sons of Horus, in honour of his beloved Primarch. Further out on the Eastern Fringes, Alistair was among the commanders present on Horus' Battle Barge when they made first contact with Alpharius. Given the circumstances, Alistair launched himself at the Alpha Legion Primarch in defence of his own, not knowing who the giant warrior was. Predictably, Alistair was hurled aside like a broken toy, receiving a taste of the power the Primarchs wielded. He began to hunger for such power himself, seeking to emulate Horus and the other Primarchs. In fact, the taint of Chaos may have been seeded in his mind at this early date, as the Ruinous Powers whispered to Alistair through the Warp. But Alistair's thirst for glory did not stop there. While Horus and Abbadon and the other Company Commanders acknowledged Alistair's undeniable skill at arms and flair when leading, the Emperor himself did not. Feeling denied the glory and thanks he was due, Alistair began down a twisting path that would end in eternal glory or eternal damnation. While his body was superhuman, Alistair's mind was all too human, and a resentment began to fester. Seeking to be seen as a leader who destroyed all who stood in the Emperor's way, and hailed a glorious hero, Alistair began to think nothing of slaughtering surrendered enemies, or of levelling cities from orbit. In fact, using the full flotilla of the 9th Grand Company, Alistair rearranged the geography of entire continents on several planets with ferocious, unrelenting orbital strikes. He knew full-well that with Abbadon, and consequently Horus at his back, there were few in the Galaxy who could, and even fewer who would stop him. Still denied praise and glory by the Emperor as he butchered thousands in his name, Alistair began to look upon the galaxy as nothing more than the playpen of the selfish Emperor he was forced to bow to. This hate, this bitterness, festered all the while as he fought his way across the stars, committing ever greater atrocities and massacres as he moved further from Terra and the Emperor's rule. When Horus turned away from the Emperor, Alistair was all too glad to follow. The Heresy Alistair was on the bridge of his personal Battle Barge and Flagship, Requiem when Horus spat on his oath to the Emperor. As his face twisted into a wicked snarl, Alistair turned and cut down his Company Chaplain, cutting him in half and decapitating him before his bisected body could fall with a fluid movement of his power sword, striking so quickly his blade returned to its sheath before the Chaplain began bleeding. The Chaplain's body still adorns Requiem's command bridge to this day, and the Chaplain's skull and Crozius Aracnum adorn Alistair's banner. Alistair rapidly advanced from his station on the Eastern Fringes in dozens of savage attacks that left nothing but mass graves and shattered skeleton cities behind. Entire continents had to be repopulated in Alistair's wake after the Heresy as he left the Loyalists utterly devastated with the intent of them never being able to rise again to challenge Horus. In return for the slaughter of millions in their name, the Chaos Gods each granted Alistair gifts. Nurgle granted him greater vitality as his body began ignoring pain. Khorne granted him great strength and Slaanesh bestowed supernatural speed and grace upon him. Tzeench granted him by far the most terrifying gift. The Lord of Change awakened Alistair's latent psychic power. Alistair was an Alpha-level psyker, but his power had lain dormant his whole life. Alistair fought on Terra with Horus and Abbadon. While it is true that the World Eaters were the first to breach the walls of the Imperial Palace, Alistair was on their heels immediately, following Angron's berserkers into the Palace grounds and slaughtering all in his path. Alistair was strong and fast, even for a Space marine, even before receiving his Gifts of Chaos, but was now vastly superior to his erstwhile brothers. Only when his soldiers met the immovable bulwark of the Adeptus Custodes did Alistair falter. As his men and Angron's berserkers were cut down around him, Alistair met Veteran Sergeant Valdez, cousin to Constantin Valdez, on the steps of the Palace. Battling his foe, Alistair was pushed to his limits and beyond. As the Custodian stood over Alistair in preparation for the killing blow, Alistair revealed his new trick. Unleashing a wave of pure psychic force, Alistair launched the massive Custodian into the air and into the immense Palace doors, breaking his back. His foe crippled and stricken, it was merely a matter of casually decapitating him where he lay. Alistair did so with relish. Afterwards, Alistair led his Brother Chaos Marines into the Palace, elated with his victory, and slaughtered all in his path. Again and again, Alistair's soldiers were stopped and forced back, and again and again, Alistair turned back into the fray, turning the tide as the one man who turned to face the foe one last time. Between barked orders, snarled threats and glorious speeches, Alistair led his brothers through the Palace, along mile-long corridors and kilometre-wide domes and atriums towards victory and eternal glory. Exile and the Long War But Horus' gambit failed. The last throw of the dice was lost as the Emperor slew his most beloved son. Alistair felt Horus' death through the Warp, and heard Abbadon's screams of pain and sorrow through the Warp. Alistair's vengeful roar signalled his anger coming to a head and his uncontrolled psychic power tore a hole in reality itself for a mere second, killing those who stood around him as sheer darkness and pure hate poured from every gap and crack in his armour, leaking through his helmet grille and eye lenses in writhing tendrils that destroyed everything they touched. In that split-second, Alistair saw Chaos in all it's undiluted glory. Glory promised to him by the gods while the Emperor had given him nothing but damning silence. Joining his brothers in Exile, Alistair shed his name when Abbadon renamed the Sons of Horus. Alistair chose the name for its simplicity. It would become a tenfold curse on a thousand worlds. Alistair was one of the only Black Legion Commanders who did not join Abbadon in destroying Horus' body. Once Abbadon began to rise to prominence among the Traitor Legions, Alistair returned to Abbadon's side as he rebuilt the Legion, in both manpower and prestige, answering his Warmaster's beck and call just as Abbadon had obeyed Horus. But Alistair did not truly serve Abbadon as a leader. He obeyed him because he was the Champion of Chaos. Alistair never answered to Abbadon, he answered to the Dark Gods, and only obeyed Abbadon as their messenger. And as Abbadon's loyal servant, Alistair became the Hound of Chaos. Over his Exile, Alistair held command of the 9th Grand Company, slaughtering countless would-be usurpers and subjugating innumerable warbands to supplement the numbers of his forces. Under his command, the 9th has prospered, and generally numbered greater than Legion Grand Company strength as Alistair forced more and more Renegade and Chaos Warbands to heel to replace losses. Alistair fought in every Black Crusade, always on the front lines by Abbadon's side, always a virtually unstoppable juggernaut. Ever the loyal Hound of Chaos, Alistair would obey the darker voices that began to whisper to him. While this often brought him great glory, there were times he felt the gods were toying with him. He put it down to them testing him, pushing his loyalty to see how far he would go, what he would or wouldn't do. During the battles of the 2nd Black Crusade, Alistair began a long-running Blood Feud with the Blood Templars Loyalist Chapter by slaying their High Marshall, Baldrecht, in brutal single combat. Baldrecht, in spite of being killed, would always be remembered as one of the only beings ever to wound Alistair in single combat. The Blood Templars were not the only ones with a reason for hate. Another running rivalry Alistair holds is with the former Cadian Schock Trooper Smiley Joe. Alistair was attempting to capture the Megalith of Archan on the now-destroyed planet, Terros. However, Joe somehow managed to set off a chain reaction in the Megalith's superconductive construction that resulted in the structure exploding at the height of Alistair's pre-battle speech. Alistair caught Joe and buried him up to his neck in the desert. Joe somehow dug his way out, and the two have hated each other ever since. In the Gothic War, Requiem and the other 9th Grand Company ships joined Abbadon as he assailed the Gothic Sector. Requiem had undergone massive overhaul in the shipyards of the Eye. It was no longer the underpowered behemoth like other Battle Barges. It was a swift leviathan, vaulted arches and great spires becoming twisted and altogether more anarchistic and typically chaotic. It's guns, including its fierce dorsal bombardment cannons, now sported gaping, slavering maws that belched forth death with every shot. With Alistair on the command bridge, it was ever deadlier, as Alistair had ten millennia of tactics and experience to serve him. He was among the Planet Killer's escorts through the Sector, but was often sent to fight in other battles as well, burning cities from orbit or mangling patrol fleets as Abbadon held the sector in an ever-tightening chokehold. In the 13th Black Crusade, Alistair was let loose again. He and the 9th Grand Company ravaged planets and armies around the Cadian Gate, drawing precious defences away from Cadia itself. After that period of slaughter, Alistair returned to his master's side, on the ground of Cadia. He joined battle in the Basilica Defaux, carrying Abbadon's banner when its bearer was cut down by heavy weapons fire. Again Alistair listened to the voices of the gods as they whispered to him. Every move he made found a new foe to slay, or took him away from the deadly fire of Heavy Bolters and Autocannons. Every move he made brought salvation to his brothers and death to his foes. Over his actions on the front lines of every campaign he has fought, Alistair has put himself in greater danger than other Chaos Lords, putting him in greater danger, but also putting him in greater stead with the Dark Gods as he himself slaughtered in their name. Several times he has come into conflict with the most dangerous of Imperial Agents, the Inquisition. In these battles, he again proved his great skill, slaughtering every Inquisitor to dare to attack him. Over his extremely active carreer in the service of the Ruinous Powers, he has earned many honours from the Warmaster, including the illustrious Brazen Star and Black Heart of Chaos. As his actions always take him to the forefront of every campaign he takes part in, he will presumably face many more such attacks until he lies dead, broken and forgotten, or until the Emperor's hide adorns his banner as he promised it would ten thousand years ago. In the pursuit of a weapon known only as the Angel, an ancient Eldar weapon of immense power (not to be confused with the Pre-Imperial Human weapon of the same name on Karis Cephalon), Alistair found himself striking at the Soren System, and Soren Primus in particular. Putting the 9th Company's unusual number of Sorcerors to good use, Alistair quickly had the entire System enveloped in extremely powerful Warp Storms. Leaving the only entrance to the System along a direct route past Soren Primus to draw Imperial Forces in with the intention to test the Angel once he took it, Alistair baited two well-known Chapters, the Steel Fists and the Golden Legion. The Steel Tigers were unable to intervene due to being on the wrong side of the System to enter through the rapidly closing gap in the Warp Storms. There, on Soren Primus, Alistair laid waste to every force sent his way until the Space Marines arrived. The Chaos Lord Savark Von Andranas arrived shortly after Alistair, aiding in the destruction of several PDF detatchments, and a major battle with the Golden Legion. Before this battle, Alistair was visited with visions of a Golden Legion youngling known as Kaldrin. Unwilling to kill the whelp after he appeared in a vision containing the Angel, Alistair merely toyed with the Loyalist. Another renowned Golden Legionnaire, the veteran Ferrox Baldur, was not so lucky. In a twisted display of torture, Savark and Alistair dismembered Baldur while one of Alistair's Chosen, Hadrius, forced Kaldrin, Baldur's de facto apprentice, to observe the whole ordeal, and Alistair's eventual execution of the aged Space Marine. For a brief few months in the wake of the Soren Incident, attempts on Alistair's life by his underlings spiked dramatically after Savark's betrayal unveiled a perceived weakness. Alistair's personal Warband, however, remained fanatically loyal, and only three assassins made it to the Hound himself. The others were all caught and killed by the Blood Knights. Each one was sent back to their master piece by piece over a period of a week or two, depending on how big the assassin was. Any repeat attempts warranted the death of the underling who was sending the attackers. Some Chaos Lords made repeat attacks, to the point where Alistair had decimated the Chaos Lords in his service and assimilated their warbands into his own. This solidified his hold on them significantly, but damaged the versatility of his force overall. Ascension to Daemonhood Yeah, it's happening, at long last. Alistair's Black Crusades More coming soon The Screaming Cage, Black Crusade I, 944 M33 - 966 M33 Alistair led his first Black Crusade shortly before the turn of the 34th Millennium, ravaging dozens of worlds before he was brought to heel by a massive mobilisation of Imperial military might. After over a century of preparation after Abaddon's 3rd Black Crusade, Alistair summonned his fleet and vassal warbands and set out from Felgard with destruction on their minds. They first set their sights on the Tersius Sector of Segmentum Obscurus, striking as a powerful system of Warp Storms belched forth ahead of them. With the Sector so isolated by the Warp Storms, there was no chance of outside aid and the sector fleet was quickly brushed aside by Alistair's gargantuan flotilla. As always, Requiem rode at the head of this tide, desacrating all in it's path. The Sector Admiral made a valiant attempt to slow the Chaos Fleet by attempting a ramming attack on Requiem, but a close-range blast from the Chaos Ship's Dorsal Bombadrment Cannons put paid to the plan, sending the wreckage of the Admiral's ship, the aptly-named Pillar of Arrogance crashing to the surface of the Paradise World Sellessia XV, forever scarring the planet's surface and polluting it's atmosphere with the ship's fuel and munitions. With the fleet crippled and fleeing, the Sector was all but defenceless from the merciless orbital bombardments applied by Alistair's ships. The entire fleet moved from planet to planet, bombarding them for days on end as the entire flotilla unleashed their wrath. Whole planets needed to be reclassified in the wake of the war as their atmospheres became clouded with dust and debris and entire continents were sunk beneath oceans by the merciless bombardment. Rather than cost numbers of his Chaos Space Marines, Alistair summonned Legions of Daemons to the surface of the stricken planets to eradicate the remaining human populations. The cycle continued, devastating entire systems and leaving four completely devoid of all life. When contact was finally made with the Sector almost six years later, all that was received was a message from Alistair himself. "We are returned." With the Warp Storms abated, the Imperium mobolised against the Hound, the slumbering leviathan finally woken to war. No less than two Space Marine Chapters, seven Imperial Guard Regiments and a whole Titan Legion were set against Alistair's monstrous forces, consisting of the gargantuan assembly of warhosts that was the 9th Grand Company, five Traitor Guard Regiments, accompanying Titans and innumerable Daemons. Records of the war are hazy at best as the Ordo Malleus attempted to cover up the presence of such a hideous force at large in the Galaxy, but it is known that the two Space Marine Chapters suffered greatly. Once Chapter, the Lunar Knights, was completely destroyed by the combined forces of the 9th and a Daemonic Legion under the command of the Greater Daemon Zarkhol the Implacable. Fully half of the other Chapter, the currently penitent Screaming Falcons turned to Chaos and assailed their brothers, reducing the Chapter's total strength to less than one full Company. Six of the Imperial Guard Regiments were scattered and the seventh were all executed once the war was over. Of the Titan Legion, none know. All contact was lost when their transport fleet was engulfed by Warp Storms en-route to the war. The Traitors finally beat a fighting retreat to the Eye of Terror fully twenty-two years after they first crawled forth, leaving two devastated sectors in their wake and a further three totally empty of life, and over a dozen worlds infested with rampaging Daemons as Alistair dropped devices similar to Angron's Monolith from orbit. The Straakan War, Black Crusade II, 001 M35 - 009 M35 The second time Alistair assembled the Ninth Grand Company and led them from the Eye, he struck much further afield than before. Travelling along little-used Warp routes, Alistair struck at the Straakan Sector, on the border of the Segmentums Ultima and Obscurus, to the Galactic East of Fenris. The Straakan Sector was an assembly of four inter-dependent Systems, Varsus was entirely industrialised, Ternis was entirely dedicated to agriculture, Varikus was made up of Feral and Hive worlds and dedicated to recruiting for the system militaries, and Shrake contained the Systems' collected Governments. Between the four Systems, they fed several fronts in the various wars on the Eastern Fringes and in the Halo Stars. For some obscure reason, a partner in one of Alistair's Daemonic Pacts demanded that the Imperial efforts in these wars be disrupted. Rather than engulfing the Sector in Warp Storms as he had with the Tersius Sector, Alistair hid his fleet in a large Asteroid Belt, striking periodically over the entire eight year period and leading Imperial Ships into blind alleys and ambushes when they gave chase. The Chaos Forces also seeded the Sector with mines of a type. Asteroids blasted to pieces by concentrated fire, those chunks of stone and iron would hurtle through space at shocking speeds until they struck an intervening body. They were more than capable of destroying a Cruiser-sized ship, and could cripple larger vessels and vent whole sections to vacuum with the damage they caused. Alistair crippled dozens of pursuing fleets in this manner, then engaged their ruined remnants in what were nothing more than massacres and duck shoots. The major engagements in the Straakan War were all fleet-based, as Alistair crippled the Sector early on in the war by Virus Bombing the inhabitable worlds in the Ternis System, essentially starving the entire Sector as his fleet launched attacks on supply convoys. Billions died in the resulting famines, and revolutions and civil wars erupted as the planetary militaries siezed what food was left to feed the rich and powerful. After six years of repetetive assaults on supply fleets, the Sector was left empty of all human life as even those rich who earmarked food for themselves succumbed to starvation and disease. That done, Alistair took to a two year cycle of planetary bombardments to reduce the empty planets of the Varsus, Varikus and Shrake Systems to rubble. When Alistair finally pulled back to the Eye, the Imperium returned to three Systems of Dead Worlds. The Black Heath Insurrection 7?? M35 - 799 M35 The starting date of Alistair's third Black Crusade is known only to the Hound himself, as the main Chaos assault was preceded by several years of seemingly abortive Cult risings and short, ineffective Warp Storms that were only discovered as the testing attacks when the 9th Grand Company erupted from a System-wide series of Warp Storms that enveloped the Kromarch System in the nearby Warp Anomaly, Rorke's Silence. Personality and Traits The moniker Hound of Chaos is fitting for Alistair. Always seeking to better himself in the eyes of his masters, the Dark Gods, and willing to do anything to gain their favour. Thus far, he has been a "good dog" and earned many favours from them. He is ever loyal and his fiery oratory and infectious charisma has turned whole armies to Chaos. Only the Dark Apostles of the Word Bearers and Abbadon himself can match his skill in making grand speeches and swaying the minds of men. His mind became bitter and twisted during the Great Crusade, laying the seeds of heresy (relatively) early in his life. He never shows his true intentions to other Chaos Lords or even his brothers in the 9th Grand Company. He has even managed to hide it from Abbadon that he holds greater loyalty to the Dark Gods than he does to Abbadon and the Black Legion. All he presents to the world around him is an aura harder than granite. Few Chaos Lords take any joy in working by his side as his intentions are so hard to trace, compared to the berserkers of the World Eaters and the conniving Thousand Sons, who leave their thoughts and wishes relatively exposed. Alistair is also highly sadistic. Not in the simple way a Chaos Space Marine of the Emperor's Children Legion would be. It goes beyond individual sadism and torturing the foe, rarely toying with them until he can find a new plaything. Alistair's sadism has much more flair. Having turned entire hive cities and whole armies to Chaos, mere rumours of his presence on a world can bring the wrath of the Inquisition down on innocent heads. The crack of bone, the snap of sinew and the cry for mercy are music to Alistair. He does not play with his foe like a cat with a mouse, he utterly destroys them, mind, body and soul and takes great joy in doing so. Lately he began seeding Ork-infested worlds with Brainleaves, rendering the planets completely uninhabitable to other races, simply because of a combination of morbid curiosity and having the power to abuse. Alistair does not fight clean, he sees it as an unwillingness to give the fight your all, nor does he fight fair, as he sees a fair fight as a sign of unpreparedness. If that means taking hostages or genocide, Alistair has no problems with it. Alistair is more than willing to poison a besieged enemy by dropping corpses over their walls or drowning lepers in their water source, and on several occasions, has massacred children to prevent a new generation of enemies from growing. Through sheer willpower, Alistair has resisted the pull of any Chaos God in particular. He worships all four Greater Powers equally, sometimes in cycle, but rarely all four simultaneously. Given his immense sorcerous talent, he leans towards a Tzeenchean path, and constantly plans and schemes, meticulously plotting every aspect of a campaign. His might in combat, however, also attracts much attention from Khorne, and he places great emphasis on the worship of the Lord of Skulls as well. His favour with Khorne has allowed Alistair to form a long-standing alliance with the Bloodthirster Zarkhol the Implacable. While he does not worship Nurgle to the same extent due to his antithesis of Tzeench, Alistair has gained the favour of the Lord of Decay through use of Daemonic Plagues in many campaigns and his constant acts of destruction and corruption of his foes. While Alistair's sadistic approach to planetary cullings had gained him Slaanesh's attention, Alistair does not worship the Dark Prince to the same extent of the other three Chaos Gods, but nonetheless affords it great respect and honour. Each Chaos God has granted Alistair favour, and each God has attempted to pull the Hound directly under their sway. Thus far, he has resisted, but leans ever-closer to the worship of Tzeench and Khorne before Nurgle and Slaanesh. Alistair is also immensely intelligent, a genius on a par with the likes of Ahriman of the Thousand Sons and Fabius Bile, and some might even venture as far to compare him to Magnus the Red (though Alistair himself has never made such a claim). His years of accumulated wisdom coupled with his intellect have made him an invaluable advisor for those he deems worthy of his counsel. Unlike Arhiman and Bile, he has spread his ten thousand years of learning over many disciplines, including languages, Chaos Rituals, engineering and strategies and tactics. Many battles, and even entire wars have been won for Chaos at a mere suggestion by the Hound. Alistair will always plan a campaign and prepare for every eventuality. Combined with the foresight granted by his psychic powers, Alistair will almost never be caught by surprise. He will almost always be able to outsmart a foe, even on the fly when his plan has been utterly stymmied by a particularly dogged foe or the unlikely coming true. A Polygot, Alistair can speak all three forms of Imperial Gothic, as well as nine other Human Languages and over a dozen Daemonic Languages fluently, and has a working knowledge of another nine Daemonic Languages and four other Human Languages. This gives him a great many choices of Daemons to make pacts with, as well as encoding messages and communiques during battles. Alistair has gathered many sources of knowledge to himself, looting Librarii wherever he goes to expand his impressive knowledge of various sciences and other disciplines. Alistair is a competent medical expert and surgeon (when he can find a scalpel large enough to use effectively in his massive hands), and a skilled geneticist, though not quite as talented or imaginative as Fabius Bile when it comes to his creations. Unlike Bile, Alistair rarely tests his achievements on himself, preferring to see how they affect others before toying with his own genetic code. Alistair has collected the archived knowledge of several Forge Worlds that fell to his wrath during the Exile, varying from designs for steam locomotives to complex bionics. While he is not qualified in as many words, he is undoubtedly a skilled artificer, and repairs his own armour and weapons, and has performed some augmetic surgeries on underlings. His knowledge of engineering, mechanics, genetics and the Daemonic led him to construct possibly the most nightmarish torture facilities of any Traitor Legionnaire, able to torment a victim in hudreds of different manners. Skills and Abilities As a Space Marine, Alistair has all of their superhuman abilities, including Superhuman Strength, Speed, Endurance and Agility. He also has their modified body systems, Larramann Cells and the ability to spit corrosive poison. From the day his enhancements were completed, Alistair was extremely strong and quick, even for a Space Marine. Some said he was as strong unarmoured as a Space Marine in full Power Armor was. While this is likely exaggeration, it is a testament to his immense strength. During the Horus Heresy, he received several Gifts of Chaos, including even greater strength, speed, agility and vitality that would put any foe to shame. This put him head and shoulders above his brother Space Marines. During his exile and the constant warring in the Eye, as well as conflicts beyond the Eye of Terror, he was granted many more. He now towers over his Brother Chaos Space Marines, standing nearly as tall as a Terminator in his twisted Power Armor. His blood courses with the raw power of the Warp, and as he channels ever greater amounts of Warp Energy in battle, his movements blur in comparison to lesser mortals and he tears his foes apart even with his bare hands, rending them asunder with brutal shield bashes and sword cleaves. He was an immensely skilled swordsman, said to be unbeatable in single combat with his chosen weapons, a Power Sword and a Combat Shield. His skill earned him an Iron Halo in his days as a loyalist Space Marine, and his skill with a blade was compared to the Primarchs themselves. Again, this is probably exaggeration, although given a Primarch's vast physical superiority, it is difficult to make a valid comparison. He was a skilled marksman with a Bolter and many more weapons Space Marines were trained with, including those not commonly used, such as Sniper Rifles used by Space Marine Scouts. He is also an extremely efficient brawler, proficiency in unarmed combat coupled with his Daemonic Gifts makes him a virtually insurmountable obstacle in the path of any foe of the Black Legion. His unarmed strikes can, literally, split a man in half, and he can crack ceramite and bend adamantium with his bare hands. Given his use of a psychic ability known as Warp Strength, his physical power is, in theory at least, limitless. He has been recorded as punching through Imperial Terminators or burying enemies up to their armpits in the ground with a single lift and drop. He has broken the necks of the likes of large Orks, and several times, has ripped the limbs from larger Tyranids. As a tactician, Alistair knows strategies and maneuvres not used by Space Marines or other Imperial tacticians in centuries, if not millennia. He is an insightful thinker, and after ten thousand years of war, he can see through almost any ruse or trick set against him and respond with a counter-strike no longer commonly known to Imperial Commanders. While not a strategic genius on the level of Horus, he is a match for almost any other tactician or strategist set against him. Beyond physical and mental skills, Alistair can call upon massive psychic power. As an Alpha-Level psyker, Alistair is a rare and extremely powerful breed of sorcerer. While Psychic power is dangerous, especially for a Space Marine, whose enhanced body is all-too tempting for Daemons to try to take up residence, it is an extremely useful and versatile tool. Thus far, even without training, he has been able to keep Daemons out of his head through sheer willpower. He has also extracted several Daemonic Pacts from powerful denizens of the Warp, allowing him to directly and efficiently tap the Warp and channel immense amounts of psychic power. Through the use of these pacts and his own immense talent, Alistair can hide the presence of entire battle companies from almost everything but the naked eye. His gestures can hurl men about like toys and crumble rockcrete and he can hurl vast arcs of Warp Lightning that can burn through the hull of a Dreadnought. With the slightest thought, he can have a foe's greatest fear materialize before their eyes, leaving them a cowering wreck, helpless to defend themselves from further onslaughts. But as with all pacts, eventually a price must be paid. There has been some debate as to whether Alistair's expanding psychic power, which grew on an exponential scale upon awakening, has possibly extended to Alpha-Plus levels. These debates have caused some stir and great fear among agents of the Inquisition that this diabolical foe might be so immensely powerful. Thankfully, Alistair's training is limited to communes with Daemons and other Chaos Sorcerors, all of whom would hold some information back to prevent the student overtaking them. As such, it is assumed that these worries and rumours are just that, rumours. However, given that Alistair is not mentally unstable, there is a possibility that he stabilised below this awesome level of power sometime after the Traitor Legions fled Terra. As far as the Imperium is concerned, one can only hope for that. Alistair is also a rare example of a Sorceror who knows the secrets of Balefire. Not only does he know how to use Balefire, but is one of the even rarer Sorcerors who actually does. The danger inherent in the use of Balefire is not that it utterly destroys the target, but it also burns away their essence and erases them completely from the universe. This also extends to past actions they have completed. Just how far back this effect goes depends on the power of the psyker putting the Balefire to use. Generally, this will only erase a few minutes, if not mere seconds worth of history, for a being of Alistair's power, it can erase hours, even days of history with just an individually targetted blast. For a blast requiring the power to destroy groups of individuals, Alistair can erase weeks of history, which causes multiple complications. For one, it can ressurect those the victims have killed, erase objects they created from existence, wipe their orders from the minds of their subordinates and much, much more. Tzeench in particular disapproves of Balefire, given how it can erase disastrous amounts of subtle redirection for his plots, and Eldar Farseers greatly fear Balefire. As a result, Alistair will rarely put this most powerful weapon to use. Equipment As with many Chaos Space Marines, Alistair favours close action over long-range combat, although he often uses an Iron Warrior-like meticulous fireplan in battle. He usually carries a Storm Shield and a Power Sword. With this Power Sword and Storm Shield, he is a virtually unstoppable whirlwind of sword cleaves and shield bashes that rarely gives an opponent time to mount an effective defence, much less a counter-attack. On the defensive, his finely-honed sword work and skill with his shield puts up a wall of defence that few foes can penetrate, deflecting an opponent's attack at the last second to cause the maximum disruption to the opponent. He always carries his Bolter and Bolt Pistol, and is a skilled marksman. The Mk III bolter has a retrofitted Mk IV drum-feed and a scope looted from another Mk IV Bolter. The Bolt Pistol is of a similar design, retrofitted with a Mk IV drum-feed. The grips are altered, either looted from another bolter or mutated by the effects of the Eye of Terror. Alistair is also trained in the use of his Bolter's pistol-grip, and at times weilds his Bolter in one hand and his Bolt Pistol in the other. He carries Frag Grenades for attacking foes in cover and in close spaces, and for those times where he comes across enemy armour, he carries meltabombs. Alistair's Power Armor is ancient and mutated, with few parts looted from the newest Power Armor types, torn from the still-warm corpses of Imperial Space Marines, barely recogniseable as the Sons of Horus Legion Champion Artificer Armour. His helmet is a mutated visage, twisted beyond recognition from it's original form. The horns on the helmet grew sometime in his exile, from the sides of the helm like a bull's. The armour itself has mutated to the extent that faces swim about under its surface, each one the face of a victim of Alistair's blade or his guns. Full Equipment List *'Mark of Chaos Undivided' *'Luna Wolves Legion Champion Artificer Armour', mutated to fit it's Master and supplemented with newer parts looted from battlefields including: **Mk 8 Errant Armour Collar and Power Cable Protection **Helmet design unknown. Horned and mutated. *'Mk III Bolter', mutated and grown to suit it's Master **Mk IV Drum Feed Mechanism **Mk IV Stalker Scope **Inferno Bolts *'Luna Wolves Legion Champion Power Sword and Shortsword', mutated and grown in proportion to their Master *'Mk II Storm Shield' *'Warped Iron Halo', also his Personal Icon, Warp Focus and Warp Talisman *'Mk III Bolt Pistol', mutated and grown to suit it's Master *'Frag Grenades' and Melta Bombs Gifts of Chaos *Daemonic Strength *Daemonic Resilience *Daemonic Stature *Dameonic Mutation *Daemonic Essence *Daemonic Mutation *Daemonic Aura *Daemonic Rune *Daemonic Speed *Dark Whispers *Psyker Path Artefacts Associated with Alistair *'Book of Wrath' :A tome penned by Alistair himself during his Exile, it details his (and his Company's) fall to Chaos (or as he calls it himself, their Epiphany and Liberation) and his actions before and during the Heresy. It revealed that the seed of Chaos was sown in him several years before Horus himself fell to Chaos, placing him alongside the Word Bearers Legion as one of the earliest Space Marines to worship Chaos and tread the Path of Damnation. It details his Daemonic Gifts and visions he received from the Chaos Gods, as well as his meteoric rise to favour. It also concerns the worship of all four Greater Powers and the path of Chaos Undivided. :Only one copy of the book has been found outside the Eye of Terror, and was fired into the core of the nearest star minutes after an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor began reading it. It was the prized possession of the Arch Heretic of Varok, a man who led an entire Sector in the worship of Chaos and rebelled against the Imperium, summoning countless millions of Daemons after opening a Warp Rift before two Space Marine Chapters, half a Titan Legion and a dozen Imperial Guard Regiments were required to utterly destroy his forces and scour the sector of all life. One of the Space Marine Chapters was torn apart by internal conflict as four Companies fell to Chaos and turned traitor, and the entire system was cleared for Exterminatus. :Alistair owns the original copy and keeps it in his personal quarters on Felgard or aboard Requiem. The original is hand-written on Daemon skin and written in the blood of a Daemon Prince. Its cover is crafted from a Custodes Power Armour plate wrapped in the defiled skin of an Imperial Saint. Copies are scribed by Servitors on human skin in the blood of sacrifice victims and are often bound in the defiled skin of butchered Imperial citizens, preferably students from Schola Progenia. Every Chaos Lord who leads one of the massive Warbands that comprise the 9th Grand Company is required to own a copy. *'Axe of Screaming Rage' :A monstrous Khornate Chain Axe Alistair wrenched from the grasp of a World Eater Champion after slaughtering him and his retinue in combat. Possessed by the essence of the Khornate Daemon Prince Nargharoth the Raging, the axe stands as tall as a grown man, it's haft crafted from solid adamantium and it's head is filled with the roaring teeth of the Daemon that possesses it. The head itself is easily as large as a Land Raider Turret Hatch. When weilding the weapon, a warrior becomes consumed by immense fury, lending them a madman's strength and vigour as they shrug off wounds that do not completely atomise them. However, due to this bloodthirst, those not strong enough to resist their violent urges will find it impossible to lay down the weapon, even when battle has finished. A single swing, even one-handed, is more than capable of splitting a Space Marine Terminator in half. Weilded in both hands, it can pierce the hull of an armoured vehicle. Only the mightiest warriors could summon the strength to weild it in any effective manner, a trait Alistair has in abundance, and Alistair will occassionally grant another Champion permission to use the axe in battle. For some reason, the Axe always finds it's way back to Alistair, and other Champions who weild it will almost invariably come to a violent end, as if the blade only considers the slayer of it's last Master worthy of weilding it. The only weilder who did not come to such a gruesome end was the Chaos Champion Hadrius. :Alistair himself rarely weilds the weapon, and it often adorns his personal quarters on Felgard or aboard Requiem, prefering to carry his matched blades and shield. However, when he does weild the weapon, he has been known to scythe through hordes of foes with single swings and split tanks open with mighty blows. Alistair used the Axe in his duel with Saint Aggram the Pure, known as Saint Aggram the Blind to the forces of Chaos. After tearing off the Saint's wings with his bare hands, he split the Saint in half from head to groin with one blow, cleaving effortlessly through his guarding sword as if it were a child's toy. With the Saint's blood spilled by such a foul weapon, the ground the two fought on was eternally corrupted. *'Moloch' :A jet-black Daemonsword containing the bound essence of the Greater Daemon Moloch, a Bloodthirster of Khorne Alistair lured into the blade himself. The blade itself is so dark it gives no reflections, but rather seems to drain the light from around it, giving the appearance of absolute darkness, like a Black Hole. The sword measures six feet long from tip to pommel and no runes nor sigils mar the blade while Moloch lies dormant within. However, in battle, the sword glows an unholy red over it's jet-black surface, giving a hellish, otherworldly appearance as it cleaves through foes, red streaks tracing it's path through the air. When facing a truly worthy foe, Moloch's bestial face can be seen floating inside the blade, locking eyes with the foe as the sword's weilder cuts them down with the strength and rage of a Bloodthirster, ignoring all but the gravest wounds. :The weapon thirsts not only for the blood of the foe, but their very essence, and utterly destroys them, devouring their soul and Warp Presence to strengthen itself. A weilder will be filled with titanic strength and endless hunger for war, able to cleave even the mightiest foes apart with one blow. However, if the weilder cannot control Moloch properly, they will find themselves unable to ever sate their hunger for war, attacking friend and foe as the Daemon seeks to gain sufficient strength to release itself from the blade and take it's revenge on Alistair. When not being worn by a strong-willed warrior, the sword must be chained within it's sheath to prevent it from sliding free and dismembering some unfortunate passer-by, or the wearer. Even then, it can be seen to twitch and writhe in the sheath as it attempts to draw itself. :The most notable use of the blade was when Alistair slaughtered the Honour Guard and Masters of the Straken Wolves Space Marine Chapter in 966 M38, when one of his own Black Crusades led to the destruction of the entire Straken Wolves Chapter. To add insult to injury to these so-called mighty warriors, Moloch himself did not put in an appearance in the blade. Alistair also used the sword to impale Saint Suroth over a cathedral altar while the Saint gave a sermon on Candlemass, corrupting the entire Cathedral as the monstrous Chaos Lord nailed the Saint to the altar with a single thrust of the Daemonsword. Alistair also used the blade during the battles of the 7th Black Crusade on the Killing Fields of Mackan. It is by far the most frequently used of Alistair's weapons, other than the swords and shield of the Sons of Horus Legion Champion. *'Mark of the Beast' :Not an artefact per se, the Mark of the Beast is Alistair's personal brand and icon, a variation of the Mark of Chaos Undivided. While it does not carry the same connotations as Abaddon's Mark of Chaos Ascendant, it does show a wearer as a vassal of Alistair, and consequently not to be taken lightly. In the Imperium, the appearance of the Mark of the Beast will generaly bring about heavy retribution, as Alistair's campaigns against the Imperium inevitably involve massive destruction and slaughter on unbelievable scale. *'Pinion of Malice' :An ancient Accursed Crozius, the Pinion of Malice is a powerful Warp Conduit once used by the Dark Apostle Gharrus Kharnat. Unlike most Possessed Weapons, the Pinion does not contain the bound essence of a Daemon, but rather, the soul of it's last owner. Alistair bound Kharnat to the Crozuis after butchering him in a duel. The weapon, while monstrous in the hands of a lesser being, suits Alistair as a one-handed device, in those rare instances when he bears it into battle. The weapon inherited Kharnat's immense talent for summonning Daemons, and is most frequently used as an Icon for summonings and invocations. The weapon, like the Daemonsword Moloch, is known to hunger for the souls of mortals, becoming an ever-more-powerful Warp Conduit as it feeds on the blood and souls of it's victims. Alistair sometimes carries the weapon in combination with one of his other swords, fatally wounding and crippling the foe with his blade and then using the Pinion to strike a killing blow, magnifying the weapon's summoning power without having to rely on it's admittedly weaker combat power. :Alistair usually keeps the Pinion in his personal quarters with his other artefacts, creating a veritable museum of ancient and twisted items that serves as a beacon of Chaos. Quotes By About Black Legion Ninth Grand Company Category:Chaos Space Marines Category:Characters Category:Chaos Category:Chaos Lords Category:Psykers